
Laws regulating measurement were originally developed to prevent fraud in commerce. Over the course of human history, however, first for convenience and then for necessity, standards of measurement evolved so that communities would have certain common benchmarks. Nothing inherent in nature dictates that an inch has to be a certain length, nor that a mile is a better measure of distance than a kilometre.

With the exception of a few fundamental quantum constants, units of measurement are derived from historical agreements. This directly influenced the Michelson–Morley experiment Michelson and Morley cite Peirce, and improve on his method. The first proposal to tie an SI base unit to an experimental standard independent of fiat was by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), who proposed to define the metre in terms of the wavelength of a spectral line. Arrows point from units to those that depend on them. Instead, the measurement unit can only ever change through increased accuracy in determining the value of the constant it is tied to. Artifact-free definitions fix measurements at an exact value related to a physical constant or other invariable phenomena in nature, in contrast to standard artifacts which are subject to deterioration or destruction. Six of these units are defined without reference to a particular physical object which serves as a standard (artifact-free), while the kilogram is still embodied in an artifact which rests at the headquarters of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sèvres near Paris. The system defines seven fundamental units: kilogram, metre, candela, second, ampere, kelvin, and mole. Measurements most commonly use the International System of Units (SI) as a comparison framework. Errors are evaluated by methodically repeating measurements and considering the accuracy and precision of the measuring instrument. An uncertainty represents the random and systemic errors of the measurement procedure it indicates a confidence level in the measurement.A unit assigns a mathematical weighting factor to the magnitude that is derived as a ratio to the property of an artifact used as standard or a natural physical quantity.The magnitude is the numerical value of the characterization, usually obtained with a suitably chosen measuring instrument.The type is commonly not explicitly expressed, but implicit in the definition of a measurement procedure. For example, two states of a property may be compared by ratio, difference, or ordinal preference. The level of measurement is a taxonomy for the methodological character of a comparison.They enable unambiguous comparisons between measurements. The measurement of a property may be categorized by the following criteria: type, magnitude, unit, and uncertainty.

Measurement is defined as the process of comparison of an unknown quantity with a known or standard quantity. The science of measurement is pursued in the field of metrology. This system reduces all physical measurements to a mathematical combination of seven base units. Since the 18th century, developments progressed towards unifying, widely accepted standards that resulted in the modern International System of Units (SI). Often these were achieved by local agreements between trading partners or collaborators. Historically, many measurement systems existed for the varied fields of human existence to facilitate comparisons in these fields. Measurement is a cornerstone of trade, science, technology and quantitative research in many disciplines. However, in other fields such as statistics as well as the social and behavioural sciences, measurements can have multiple levels, which would include nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio scales.

In natural sciences and engineering, measurements do not apply to nominal properties of objects or events, which is consistent with the guidelines of the International vocabulary of metrology published by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. The scope and application of measurement are dependent on the context and discipline. In other words, measurement is a process of determining how large or small a physical quantity is as compared to a basic reference quantity of the same kind. Measurement is the quantification of attributes of an object or event, which can be used to compare with other objects or events. Four measuring devices having metric calibrations
